Major blizzard on track for Northeast today and tonight

Good morning. The northeastern United States remains on track for a major blizzard this afternoon and evening.

Here’s a look at the current radar, which shows the storm moving north, and a rain-into-snow transition occurring as the storm moves into New York.

Radar as of 7 a.m. CT. (chron.com)

There are two reasons to think (hope may be the better word) the storm won’t be quite as significant for parts of the Northeast.

For one, several models now bring the storm on a slightly more easterly track, which would keep some of the storm’s heaviest snowfall offshore. One of the models with the most aggressively eastward track is the Global Forecast System. The image below shows accumulated precipitation (in inches, in liquid) for the next five days.

Now 2 inches of rain is still significant snowfall — about 20 inches — but as you can see the very heavy amounts of snowfall are along a corridor to the east of land.

Other models, such as the European forecast model, are still following a more westward track, and this remains entirely possible if not likely. Under this scenario, portrayed below, in excess of 2 feet of snow should still falls across parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Two-day snowfall accumulation map, ECMWF, 12 model. (Weather Bell)

Another reason for southern areas of the affected region, including New York City, to feel slightly better about this storm is that the initial precipitation from it will be coming in liquid form this morning. As the New York City National Weather Service suggested this morning, that could knock as much as six inches of snow accumulation in parts of the city.

With that said, this remains a severe storm, and its effects this afternoon, evening and tonight will be substantial. Find somewhere safe to hunker down beginning this afternoon.